Letter to a minister

Want to boost the economy? Improve our transportation systems

Dear minister, Congratulations on your appointment as the minister of transport. You are leading a department with a proven track record of keeping Canada’s transportation system safe, secure, and operational across vast geographies and challenging conditions. However, over the past decade, the department’s role as a driver of economic growth has not been as prominent as it must now become. In an era of shifting trade dynamics, supply chain vulnerabilities, and urgent infrastructure demands, Transport Canada must evolve to ensure its role as steward of the transportation system actively supports—rather than inadvertently hinders—national competitiveness. Transport Canada can play a vital role in advancing the prime minister’s economic agenda by ensuring the seamless movement of people and goods across the country, helping to boost productivity across the Canadian economy, as well as reducing costs for Canadian travellers. Your department is structured by mode of transportation, and so I am offering targeted recommendations within each mode to support your efforts in ensuring that Transport Canada takes its full space in sustaining and growing Canada’s economy...

It’s time to make public safety a priority

Dear minister, Congratulations on your appointment as the minister of public safety. You have been entrusted with the job of making our streets safer, ensuring our national borders are strong and protected, and decisively addressing national security threats. At any time in our history, this would be a daunting challenge. Today, the key institutions in your purview, including the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Corrections Canada, and the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), are overstretched, under-equipped, and misaligned with the complex demands of modern enforcement. These organizations face an unprecedented need for change. Expectations are high. Canadians are worried about public safety.Crime—especially violent crime—is up. And with issues such as border security and financial crime now being linked to the broader Canadian economy through a trade war with the United States, Canadians are more aware of and worried about these issues than ever. At a time when global instability and shifting geopolitical relationships have brought national security into sharper focus, both at home and among our international partners, your leadership will be critical. In his mandate letter, the prime minister has tasked you with working alongside your colleagues to “protect Canadian sovereignty and safety.” In this letter, I offer concrete recommendations to help you meet this critical and complex challenge...

How to fix Canada’s justice system and protect Canadians from crime

Dear minister, Congratulations on your appointment as the minister of justice and attorney general. Your department has a lot of work ahead of it, both to support an aggressive and important legislative and regulatory agenda and to use the tools at your disposal—primarily the Criminal Code—to make Canadians safer. While the priority of “protecting Canadian sovereignty and safety” outlined in the prime minister’s mandate letter to ministers is the most directly aligned with your department’s mandate, in reality, as the Government of Canada’s in-house law firm, you will have an important role to play in supporting virtually all his listed priorities. In this letter, I offer some concrete advice on how to advance meaningful change early in your mandate to allow you to fulfill this role, and policy proposals that will help ensure that Canada’s justice system is a source of national confidence and international respect...

Canada’s long-term prosperity depends on maximizing our resource potential

Dear minister, Congratulations on your appointment as the minister of energy and natural resources. You are now head coach for three crucial sectors of the Canadian economy: energy, mining, and forestry. As you know, the prime minister has committed to a generational change, which will require bold ambition from his cabinet. His mandate letter outlined seven key priorities [https://www.pm.gc.ca/en/mandate-letters/2025/05/21/mandate-letter], and your portfolio has an important role to play in achieving these, not only the department of Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), but also its regulators, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), and the Canada Energy Regulator (CER). You have an especially significant role to play in “expediting nation-building projects,” “bringing down costs for Canadians,” and “spending less on government operations.” In sports, there is a saying: “You cannot coach size.” We are fortunate that when it comes to natural resources, Canada has size—lots of size. We have almost everything the world needs—from conventional and unconventional energy to critical minerals to forest products. We are also known as socially and environmentally responsible—our oil and gas sector, for example, has made great strides in reducing carbon intensity—and we also offer a secure source of supply for countries worried about an increasingly turbulent international environment...

How to protect the environment and support economic growth at the same time

Dear minister, Congratulations on your appointment as the minister of environment and climate change. You have found yourself right in the middle of passionate debates about how to balance the protection of Canada’s vast and diverse natural environment with the needs of an economy that depends heavily on resource development. The prime minister has set an ambitious agenda for the new government and has outlined seven key priorities [https://www.pm.gc.ca/en/mandate-letters/2025/05/21/mandate-letter] for his mandate. Your department has an important role to play in achieving these priorities, particularly “expediting nation-building projects,” “bringing down costs for Canadians,” and “spending less on government operations.” Success will require reorienting Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) towards a more focused and outcome-based approach to protecting the environment while supporting economic growth...